Liam had a GREAT first game! He had two RBI’s, made one or two outs and only struck out once. He played right field for two innings, sat on the bench for two innings and he was the “pitcher” for two innings (he stood by the pitching machine). His team had LOTS of great hits, but they super duper need to work on defense.
Archive for April 2011
Doesn’t everyone wear a fake ‘stache to baseball practice? (Yes, I made him take it off before practice started, but he had to wear it long enough so everyone could see it.)
We eat a lot of snacks around here. The boys each take a snack to school each day and then they usually always have a snack after school and then they might also have a snack before bedtime. While the boys were at TKD, I walked over to the nearest grocery store to see what they had in the way of snacks because the cupboard was starting to look a little bare. Since I don’t usually go to that store, I got some snacks our regular grocery store doesn’t carry and also some tried and true favorites. The boys have always liked the Mix-Up Goldfish and the V-8 Fusion juice, but we had never tried the Newton cookies or the Wheat Thin Stix. The Newton cookies are awesome…the Wheat Thin Stix are just so-so.
They get one bean for each good deed they do over the course of Lent. Their goal is to have at least 40 beans in their cup before Easter. As you can see, Colm is keeping track of his every step of the way. 🙂
Colm has learned almost all of his Twinkles (that’s Suzuki talk for those of you who have no idea what I’m talking about) so he gets to stay and play for a while with the more advanced students now.
It was a cold and rainy day… thank goodness Oregon schools have covered playgrounds.
I have started to fall behind on my book reviews and I need to catch up before I get so far behind that it’s too much work to get caught up.
This weekend I finished The Boy in the Striped Pajamas by John Boyne. I was not impressed. The main character, Bruno, is supposed to be nine years old, but he acts like a 6-year old and the author made his character way too naive. I didn’t like the ending either. Instead of continuing to tell the story, it was as if the author ran out of time and just decided to summarize the last twenty pages of the story into a few paragraphs. There is a movie of the book and it’s in my Netflix queue…hopefully it is better.
I recently joined a book club and we read The Passion Dream Book by Whitney Otto. I had a very hard time getting into this book. It started off in the times of Michelangelo for a chapter and then skipped to the 1920’s in America for the rest of the book…that part of the book I enjoyed. It follows Romy (a young woman who gets kicked out of her house for loving Augustine, a black man) to New York and through Europe as she explores the world of art and photography. At the end of the book I really felt like I had kind of been following Romy and Augustine’s lives for the last 40 years or so. By the way, the part of the book with Michelangelo in it does eventually tie in with the more modern part of the story.
I really liked The Birth House by Amy McKay. It takes place during and around World War I in a small village on the coast of Nova Scotia. Dora is the only girl in a family of many boys and learns how to be a midwife from the only midwife that area has known for years. At just about the time she is learning her midwifing skills, a doctor brings a women’s birthing center with all of its medical miracles to the area. The town is divided and both Dora and the women of the town have to decide what to do.
The Good Earth by Pearl S. Buck- I didn’t realize how old this book was until I looked at the copyright date nor did I realize that it had won a Pulitzer. This story follows Wang Lung as he starts as a poor farmer who needs a wife. He buys a wife who is a servant at the House of Hwang. Years and years go by, their land multiplies as does their family. There are many, many pitfalls along the way though, including death, war and temptations that Wang knows he shouldn’t give into.
Colm’s new favorite game is Ratuki. Let me just say, before you play, make sure everyone has clipped their fingernails because it can get pretty fast and furious, especially if you have more than three people playing. I think I gouged poor Liam today.
The boys’ TKD school had a fundraiser for the local school district this morning. They each had the opportunity to collect pledges (either a pledge per board or a flat pledge) and then break up to ten boards. Colm broke all ten boards and he even broke two boards at once a couple of times…he thought he was pretty hot stuff. 🙂 In all, he raised over $300. Not bad. (Thanks to the grandparents for the pledges.)
Let’s just say it pays to be a member of REI. Woot! 🙂